


Separation (The Act of Growing Up)

by Harukami



Category: DRAMAtical Murder
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2018-01-12 22:58:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1203625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harukami/pseuds/Harukami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scenes from everyone's childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Separation (The Act of Growing Up)

_"Aoba"._

A name is 'definition'. He learns later that definition has, itself, two definitions, or at least connotations -- a 'meaning', and the sense of 'separating something so it stands out; making something sharper and more distinct'. As a child, he thinks none of these things. All he thinks is "I have a name." "I am someone."

It is his name, and not that of the other two.

("Yes it is," the bitter one whispers.

"...if you don't want it to be ours, it isn't," the patient one murmurs, reluctantly. "If you don't want us to be 'Aoba', we won't be."

"But we're Aoba."

"If Aoba doesn't want us to be, then we shouldn't be--"

"We're still Aoba!")

He tunes them out, those nameless voices. It's not that he ever thinks anything so firm as _they should go away_ , but he himself has been addressed from someone 'outside', and been able to talk back to someone 'outside', and he's not on the inside anymore, like them. Maybe separation is part of growing up (he thinks, proudly). He has a name and a 'self' that fits that name and a mother and a father.

"He's dawdling! Come on, Aoba," Haruka says, and turns, opening her arms.

He takes quick steps over, flings himself into her arms. She laughs as she picks him up, swings him around, and Nine comes over to see what they're giggling about, laughs when he sees it's nothing.

"Did you have fun at the aquarium, Aoba?" he asks, and ruffles Aoba's hair.

"Mmhmm," Aoba says. He likes it when they say his name, that warmth and sense of being called by someone who knows who he is.

("But what about us?"

"Shh. We'll just be something else."

" _What about us?_ ")

***

Blood is warm.

Noiz can feel 'warmth', at least, warmth and wetness, and he curls his fingers against the cut on his knee and smears his fingers there. He can't help but feel fascinated at it, at the idea that this thing that's supposed to be inside him is something he can see so easily.

He can't help but feel guilty about it too, however.

He wishes he could. He doesn't like this feeling, like he's doing something wrong by exploring his own body, by being able to do this. But he heard them talking about it. Gross, wrong. There's something wrong with him.

He was born wrong. He's broken somehow.

It should be beautiful. He wants to get back that feeling, like he'd accidentally discovered something incredible. Instead, he feels horrified as he touches his blood just so he can have some sense of understanding of his own wound. If anyone sees--

"What are you doing?"

Noiz looks up with alarm; it's the teacher. That's someone else that knows, now. His parents will be upset if she tells them. He doesn't let any of these thoughts show on his face. "I fell," he says. "On the playground."

(He didn't fall. He'd been pushed. At the time, it hadn't bothered him; it hadn't hurt, so why would it? But now he's angry. He should have pushed back. Made them see it themselves. They're the ones making him feel this way. If he hadn't injured himself, he wouldn't feel so ashamed to see his own blood. Wouldn't have to remember his mother's reaction the first time he'd shown her an injury in surprise and delight. _Look, it came out._ It's supposed to stay inside him. He knows that much now.)

"Oh, poor thing," she says. She extends a hand, then yanks it back when he reaches for it; oh, of course. There's blood on his fingertips. Instead, she grabs him by the back of his shirt and hauls him to his feet. "That must hurt."

He should lie. He should lie. It'll get back to his parents if he doesn't. Resentment builds in him.

"No," he says.

***

"What is this?"

"Ah, his voice is functional, at least. Better shut that down, though, while we run diagnostics. You know what they're capable of."

"Who am I?" he asks, hurriedly. Shut down? What are they going to do. "Tell me who I am!"

"What kind of question is that?"

"Well, he is a prototype, after all."

"Seems pretty buggy. We can check that after we do the diagnostics. I'm thinking we've got another few sixty-hour weeks in front of us."

"If we're lucky. Ugh, what a slave driver Toue is."

He tries to talk again, but no sound comes out. He can't move his body at all, just think, frantically, while they do -- things? He can feel them, he can hear them, but he can't speak, and can't see, and can't move under his own power.

Who am I? What am I? What's happening? Why is it happening to me? Answer me! Someone, answer me!

"Got the tests on your Coil yet?"

"Yeah. As always, it takes no time to transfer over, but it's gonna be hours of work to actually sift through it. Christ, I need a coffee." 

"I'll get some for both of us if you get started on that while I'm out. Shut him down again for now."

Shut down? What does it mean to be shut--

***

Koujaku thinks of Aoba.

At first he thinks it's the only thing that will get him through this pain and humiliation, the soft fox-like laughter of the man pressing him down, the feeling of hands touching bare skin and needles penetrating his flesh. 

This would be fine (he thinks) if he wanted what it represented. The tattoos are a mark of belonging to a specific 'group'. It forever writes it on his skin, what he is, what his heritage is, who he is intended by blood to be. Once a yakuza, always a yakuza. There's no escaping your own flesh.

He wants to go home to Midorijima. Aoba's probably getting bullied, he thinks, and bites into his own arm as the pain becomes hard to bear. He feels tears well up in his eyes. People are pulling his hair, hurting him. It hurts more than this, because Aoba has no one to turn to. His grandmother is busy, and his parents are always away, and Koujaku was his only friend. What will Aoba do, left by himself? How will he get by? When people pull his hair, and there isn't anyone there any more to rush to his aid, how will he feel? It absolutely must hurt more than this.

(Koujaku tastes blood in his mouth from how hard he's biting to keep himself from crying out from the pain.)

But he can't go back. There's no going back, because as long as this bloodline exists, he'll be a part of it. His mother had tried to take him away, and couldn't. (He doesn't resent her, he tells himself, tries to make it stick. He loves her, and he doesn't resent her. She tried. It's not her fault it wasn't good enough. It's not her fault. It's just how it is.) There's no way he'll do any better on his own. 

Finally, they break -- "For the day", the smiling man says. "It's been ten hours, after all. I'll see you bright and early tomorrow, Koujaku."

Koujaku thinks of running, but he can't. For one, he's in too much pain to move. Instead, he lies on blood-stained linens, smelling his own blood, and falls asleep in pure exhaustion.

The next day is worse. He passes in and out of consciousness frequently. He tries to remember Aoba's smiling face, and that fades in and out as well, a strange, surreal image. He's so angry, and he hurts so much, and he can't do anything except lie there and accept what's happening to him, and accept it, and accept it. About seven hours into the second day he finds that against his own will he's given up on his ability to remain prideful, and is leaking tears of agony into the cuts he's left on his own arm.

They finish the back tattoo on the third day, finally, about six hours in. He's thinking strange things by then, things he doesn't dare think about after the thoughts occur, not and give them any strength or reality. But when Ryuuhou leans back and says, "That looks good", Koujaku almost sobs with relief.

"But I want to add one last personal touch," Ryuuhou says, and turns him over.

Agony floods him as his raw back is pressed into the sheets and he lets out a shriek. The tattoo artist sits on him, shoves a hand into his throat and jaw, choking him, forcing his head back, and puts his needle to Koujaku's face. This wasn't part of what he was told would happen, but he has no energy left in his body to kick or fight or do anything but feel a flood of helpless anger and desire to hurt.

"Contain that," Ryuuhou whispers to him, smiling, "Or something truly terrible will happen to you."

The needle jabs in under his eye and he sees red; literally red, flashes of red. He feels his fingers curl into claws against the sheets but if he moves it could be his life. Anger burns hot in his chest, like every breath is fire, and he wants to go home, he wants to go home, he wants to go _home_.

 

***

Mink comes home from school irritated and with a bloody nose, but it's a three hour walk back from the town and that gives his temper time to cool. Not completely, because that's how these things go; long after anger has hardened into a lingering depression, things keep chasing themselves around his head. Insults, casual assumptions, even little things in people's body language.

Still, he'll be sixteen in a month, and then compulsory education will no longer apply. That doesn't necessarily mean he'll stop; he's interested in learning, and he's dealt with it this long, and it's rarely as bad as it seems to be today. As far as he can tell, it sounded like someone from out of town had been asking around about his people, and that had spurred on other teenagers in his small high school to take an inordinate interest.

When he gets home, he opens his family's cabin door -- there's no need for locks out here -- and enters. Dinner is already cooking, the rich scent of spices filling the air. He inhales with gratitude, a knot loosening in his back.

"I'm home," he calls.

His mother comes out to see him -- his father will arrive probably an hour after him, since he works in a town in the other direction and slightly further away -- and purses her lips, drawing a breath in. "What's this, then," she says, thumbing his nose, but she leans up and kisses his forehead, gentle and lingering, her usual welcome home.

"A fight," he says.

"Ah." She's not surprised, and she doesn't ask anything. Not the cause, not who won. "Go wash up," she says instead. "Then set the table."

"Yeah," he says, and does so. He splashes his face in the bathroom, watches the pink water slowly drip clear, and sniffs, glancing at himself in the mirror.

He sets the table, and he and his mother talk about other things -- a math test he took, some books he was reading in the school library (psychology, an interest he's been taking lately). His father arrives not long after, and dinner had just been waiting for him, so they sit to eat.

Mink's nose has begun to bruise slightly and his father glances it over; he, at least, seems like he's going to ask, but after a moment he sniffs, distracted. "The pot's not still on?"

"No...?" His mother too frowns, suddenly; Mink can smell it as well.

Something's burning.

***

_Aoba. Aoba._ He tries calling sometimes, mournfully. Most of the time these days, when he tries to make contact, it's to stop Aoba from doing something instinctual and risky and foolish, starting fights or climbing the sides of buildings or going down to a part of town he's too young for just for the thrill of it.

But sometimes he calls out of the desire to talk and hear Aoba talk back. Even the other part, the part Aoba listens to more, he'd like to hear that retort and try to argue with him again.

Instead there's just this sense of distance that builds into loss. He can't be seen, because there's nothing to see. He can't be touched, because there's nothing to touch. And Aoba used to hear him, but it seems that these days he's stopped.

But he doesn't want to give up.

He can't give up.

If Aoba listened to him, he could (perhaps) keep Aoba safe (as he's supposed to).

But if Aoba doesn't listen to him, what good is it? He can't do what he's supposed to like this, either, and it just feels like he's torturing himself.

_Aoba..._

Aoba doesn't hear him. It's not like he calls Aoba's attention to what he's seeing; it's just, coincidentally, that Aoba sees it too, picks it up on impulse, that abandoned allmate body. 

"Poor thing," Aoba says. "I guess you weren't wanted?"

But instead of putting it back in the trash, Aoba puts it under one arm and starts carrying it home. He thinks, suddenly, that maybe --

\-- It should be impossible, but maybe --

It _is_ terrifying, even daring to think it. This is his body. This is his home. This is where he was born and where he's meant to stay. He is part of the person here, even if he isn't 'Aoba'.

But what good is that if he's nothing?

***

Sei kicks his feet. "Do you think," he asks, "that there's anything more than this out there? Anything to do or see?"

"Child," Toue says, and puts a hand on his hair, petting it in a gentle, proprietary way, "I know there isn't."

*** 

"Stop spacing out!"

"Ah!" Aoba jumps a little, rising. "Sorry, Granny. Were you calling?"

"Of course I was calling. Dinner's ready."

"I guess I was just thinking about my childhood," Aoba says. 

Tae snorts. "Your childhood? You're barely more than a child yourself," she says. Then, relenting, "What about, then?"

"About my parents," he says, and it almost doesn't come out awkwardly. "Don't misunderstand, I'm happy with you, Granny, it's not like that kind of nostalgia or anything, just... How they swept in out of nowhere and changed my life, you know? I was barely old enough to remember any of it, but... I wonder what it must be like, to be the kind of person who just does that."

Tae gives him a sidelong look and sighs. "What do you mean?" she sighs. "You've always been like that."

"Huh?"

"Picking up whatever abandoned, lonely things you find and trying to build a home around them. You take after them more than you realize."

Aoba smiles just a little. "...It's a nice thought."

"Well, stop thinking and hurry up. You're keeping us waiting," Tae says, and goes ahead, muttering to herself a little.

It is a nice thought, though; he thinks that perhaps Granny is overestimating him, but it leaves him with a warm sensation regardless.


End file.
